Is 3D here to stay? Easy answer is yes, but the bigger question is why? And what caused the sudden interest in 3D?

If you want to save yourself from reading this blog in its entirety all you need to know is, its about money. If you care to know the finer points, then read on...

3D is not something new. 3D has been around in film and movies since the 1950's. It has been through many different phases of how to let you see the moving picture in three dimensions, but the basic concept has always been the same.

If you want to know more about the different approaches or how they work check out this wiki page: 3-D Film. This blog is focused on where we are to day and what caused the re-interest in 3D.

The Movie Theater :
It wasn't too long ago that if you wanted to see a movie and get the full experience you had to go to a movie theater. Then came along affordable surround sound, HDTV's, and even Netflix via your game console. You can now get the entire experience without leaving your home. But the real hurt came with broadband internet. Now you can get movies and watch them from home, before they even get into theaters! Sure its illegal, but people still do it because its easy and there are no real consequences.

The movie industry started losing money and needed something new and fresh to draw people back to the movie theater. Digital Projectors displaying the movies at full 4k resolution and full digital sound was a good attempt but people don't know, understand, or really care. They want to see something dramatic and something they can't get at home.

With the technology advancements with CGI and full computer animated movies, the solution was simple. Just add that third dimension and people will come.

The Television:
Technology is constantly changing and ever improving upon itself. High Definition is here and has caused people to upgrade to new and better TV's, sound equipment, gaming consoles, and as of late, HD movie play back in the form of Blu-ray.

What's the next logical step forward of High Definition? More definition of course! Call it what you want but 2k and 4k resolutions are the next "HD". Current HD comes in at 1080 pixels, 2k and 4k come in 2,048 pixels and 4,096 pixels respectively. You can read a full tech report here: The Truth About 2K, 4K and The Future of Pixels

While 2K and 4K will be good selling points for manufactures, today its hard to notice the difference between 1080 and 720 on anything smaller than a 46" TV. With that being said, TV needed something more noticeable and that would come to consumers quicker.

While the technical parts of making a Television 3D are outside my understanding at the moment, it can't be that difficult considering that at CES this year, every manufacture had one if not multiple TV's capable of displaying 3D images.

Blu-ray:
Now I haven't' written anything on Blu-ray yet, but if you want my opinion on it, you'll see quite clearly where I stand. Blu-ray is a joke and it along with HD-DVD are going to go down in history as a short-lived idea. I won't get into the finer details other than not a huge leap forward and digital copies. With Blu-ray not selling as well as people would have hoped, they needed an additional selling point to get people to buy their media. They needed a novelty item that would push people to give up their DVD's and go out and buy a Blu-ray player and movies.

There had already been a few animated movies put out that were in 3D and DVD's had no way of putting that capability on the discs, so the next logical move was to slap it on a Blu-ray disc and make it a major selling point.

Problem:
One word: Glasses. Nobody wants to wear them and they are highly impractical and ruin the image quality. By upgrading the quality of the movie experience to 3D, glasses are effectively degrading the quality of the movie with discomfort, inconvenience, and sub-par color and clarity.

Until a true auto-stereoscopic 3D solution is found, 3D viewing of TV programs and movies are not going to truly take off.

Benefits:
With the major push towards 3D Television, there have been some successful hurdles overcome. Manufactures have seen the potential of 3D and made Television sets that can display 3D with superb picture quality, networks are updating their systems to accommodate broadcasting in 3D, and providers are running updates to their set-top boxes to be able to receive the 3D signal.

The technical backbone of the deliverable and receivable 3D signal is a major step in the right direction. With the advancements from the recording cameras to the televisions and projectors, 3D is ready for prime-time. Now if only we could lose the glasses then we'd really be on to something.

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